I've been thinking of starting up a new tank just for crayfish but I've heard they love to escape and wreck plants. The lps has em for a buck apiece.

That's pretty cheap, most of the ones I've seen in pet stores are quite a bit more. I'm guessing that maybe those are otherwise used as bait?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Action53

Are they hard to care for? I'd probably fill their tank with wisteria, that stuff grows almost as fast as duckweed.

When I was living in the North East, I had kept several wild-caught ones for a bit. pretty easy to care for if you keep them solitary. They will rip up plants, kill fish (and even eat them some times) rearrange rocks, move gravel, dismember each other, and climb out of the tank. Some really big/tough plants might work, otherwise I'd probably just try and use various floaters (and even then, I'd expect them to get torn up)

Maybe some of the strains in pet stores are different, and less prone to mayhem and destruction, but I'm pretty sure they would fetch more than a buck each.

I did have one tank that had some sort of apple snail, a convict cichlid, and a wild crayfish, and after a couple days of confrontations, seemed to settle into a sorta tense state of mutual tolerance. Not a set up I'd try again though...

Last edited by lochaber; 02-17-2013 at 08:04 PM..
Reason: forgot to add something

I did have one tank that had some sort of apple snail, a convict cichlid, and a wild crayfish, and after a couple days of confrontations, seemed to settle into a sorta tense state of mutual tolerance. Not a set up I'd try again though...

I once kept a six inch large mouth bass as a pet. I caught a huge (5") crayfish and put him in the tank to clean up. The bass grabbed the crayfish by the head. The crayfish clamped on to both sides of the bass' jaw with his pincers. They swam around together like that for about 3 days before they reached that "tense state of mutual tolerance".

I once went to my LFS looking for khuli loach. The attendant there kept them with a bunch of blue lobster and the loaches are all hiding under the decor. Once disturbed by the attendant, it was mayhem! Sorry to say but I didn't wanna bring home loaches cut into pieces..

I once kept a six inch large mouth bass as a pet. I caught a huge (5") crayfish and put him in the tank to clean up. The bass grabbed the crayfish by the head. The crayfish clamped on to both sides of the bass' jaw with his pincers. They swam around together like that for about 3 days before they reached that "tense state of mutual tolerance".

Growing up we had a 6lb bass in a 55gallon, he was 1lb when my dad caught him. It was amazing to watch it eat the feeder fish. We gave him hot dogs as treats, he loved them.

I once kept a six inch large mouth bass as a pet. I caught a huge (5") crayfish and put him in the tank to clean up. The bass grabbed the crayfish by the head. The crayfish clamped on to both sides of the bass' jaw with his pincers. They swam around together like that for about 3 days before they reached that "tense state of mutual tolerance".

Yeah, I'm not exactly proud of the decision making process (or lack thereof) that led to that situation, but it was certainly educational.

I had a black PVC tee (3"?) in there for shelter that the convict really liked. They were both about the same size. The crayfish decided it wanted in there, so it marched in with claws raised and open, and the convict backed out.

The convict then proceeded to swim around to the side, grab one of the crayfish's legs, and either pull it off or flip it over and get a few nips in, and then back off. This happened several times, and after a few torn fins and a couple missing legs, the convict regained control of the inside of the tee, and the crayfish took to living under it. Every now and then the apple snail would get too close to the tee, and the convict would then rush out and headbutt it until it was an acceptable distance away.

This has sort of been the holy grail of lobster fisherman forever. The trouble is that another lobster is among a lobster's favorite foods.

Some guys do store their lobsters in giant "cars" while they wait for prices to rise, and don't suffer enough losses to make it not worthwhile.

The bigger trouble is that a lobster is about 7 years old before it is big enough to catch and eat legally. I imagine the cost of raising one would easily outstrip the payoff. I suppose if there were a massive farming industry you could lower the legal size, but would a lobster that small be worth eating? Maybe you could modify them genetically to moult more often, like a shrimp.

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